National security analysts say Russian President Vladimir Putin will likely remain undaunted by the sanctions package unveiled Feb. 24 by U.S. President Joe Biden. Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Emma Ashford said Biden’s sanctions package was what most observers expected: a series of restrictions on Russia’s ability to use the Western financial system, while leaving Russia’s energy exports mostly untouched. Energy sanctions would have imposed a harsher punishment on Russia, but they also would have severely harmed European allies and others, according to Ashford. “It [Biden’s decision] was pretty much inevitable, because the level of Russia and Europe’s interdependence makes it impossible to sanction without causing major economic disruption,” Ashford said at a Feb. 24 event hosted by Defense Priorities. Germany has cancelled the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Russia in response to Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 22 announcement of a “peacekeeping” mission in the breakaway Donbas republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (DPR …